Second Chances
Cordelia stared at the closed door, mentally psyching herself up for this. This time she was going through with it. She was going to get up from her desk, walk over to Angel's office, knock on the door, and ask him to Caritas for dinner, just the two of them, so they could talk.
It was a simple plan, easily set into motion. She just had to get up. She'd been working on it all day. Once she'd even gotten as far as knocking on the door before retreating back to her desk. When Angel had opened the door she told him he was hearing things. Angel had given her a very odd look before going back into his office that time.
Cordelia considered plan B-ness in case she decided on backing out at the last moment again. She definitely needed a better cover story.
"Who am I?" Cordelia thought to herself in disgust. "Cordelia Chase or mousy, little, tenth-grade, Willow Rosenberg? I don't waffle about speaking my mind. I want to have a nice friendly dinner with Angel to start straighten things out between us. So why am I sitting here thinking up ways to not say what I want to say instead of just asking him?"
Determinedly Cordelia marched across the room and banged on the door. When Angel opened it she asked, "Would you like some coffee?" in her best receptionist voice.
"Cordelia, is something wrong?" Angel asked, concern shining from his dark eyes.
For a moment Cordelia just stood there uncertainly, then she nodded. "I hate how things are between us," she said, on the verge of tears. "And I want to ask if maybe we could have dinner and talk, at Caritas or someplace you can get something to eat too… But I keep chickening out, am I really this scared of admitting I screwed up?"
There was a second where Cordelia thought Angel wasn't even going to answer her then he said, "You leave the message for Wesley. Tell him we're together and we'll be using your cell phone… I forgot to charge mine yesterday."
Cordelia cracked a watery smile. "And just when we all thought you and the cell had made peace," she joked in relief.
"I think it's feeling neglected," Angel replied easily. "I haven't sworn at it in months."
During the drive they stuck to light topics; demons killed, Willow's frequent complaints about how Anya seemed to think pregnancy gave her the right to boss everyone else around; safe topics, ones that didn't really matter.
Upon showing them to a table the Host smiled at both of them. "You're doing the right thing," he said before leaving them.
After they had ordered Angel waited expectantly.
"I'm sorry for what we did," Cordelia said. "But I don't even understand what we did that was so horrible that you don't even want to be in the same room with us anymore. I'm sorry that I don't know too."
"I told you why, you just didn't listen," Angel said with a sigh. "I'm tired of being punished, of knowing there is no way you'll ever let me gain back the trust I lost. Maybe it was all my fault in the first place and maybe you have a right to keep me on probation forever, but I don't think so anymore. Beyond that I couldn't stand it any longer. I tried to make amends with you; I might as well have been beating my skull against a brick wall for all the good it did me. I wore myself out Cordelia, and every time you forced me to look at how little progress I'd made in gaining your friendship back it hurt. And, surprise, even I get tired of pain eventually, so I quit trying."
"I can't make you trust me, I certainly can't make you like me. I know that now, but I don't have to let you rub my nose in it every fucking day," Cordelia cringed at the anger underlying Angel's words. Angel paused and Cordelia could see him pushing the anger back down. "I quit trying. I put distance between us because that was the only way to stop you from hurting me. It was the only option you left me."
"I never meant to hurt you," Cordelia said softly.
"And you think I did? Do you think that I chose to have the only friends I've ever had get caught in the wake of me self-destructing? Didn't it ever occur to you that I sent you away because was trying to minimize the damage, not because I was trying to hurt you?" Angel replied bitterly. "And does it change anything? I hurt you. You hurt me. We both know what good intentions get used for."
They subsided into silence when the waiter arrived with their orders. After he'd gone they turned their attention to their meals, eating slowly, trying to draw out the time before they would have to say anything more.
Finally, unable to stand it any longer, Cordelia set down her fork and said, "The PTB are going to let me pass the visions on to someone else. I was thinking that if I decided to go with Groo I'd give them to Wesley. I wanted to force you guys to stay together, cause I hoped you'd eventually make up if I did. It isn't really fair to do that to you though, is it?"
Cordelia paused and looked down at her plate. "I'll ask Fred if she'll take them. She's the one you want to be bound to isn't she? I'll ask her even if I decide to stay here." Sadness apparent in her expression Cordelia met Angel's stunned eyes. "I'm letting you put all the distance between us that you want. After this you can kick us out of your life all together if that's what you want to do, but Angel… Please don't walk away from us. I really do want us to be friends again. I realize I can't speak for Wes or Gunn but I think they want that too. Besides the Agency is their life, don't take it away from them. We managed without you once, but it was never the same."
Angel took a deep, unnecessary breath, then gave an awkward laugh. "I don't know whether to be happy or not. I've wanted to hear that so badly, why couldn't you have realized this months ago? I don't know what to do anymore. Where do we go from here?"
The Host walked up to their table. "You don't have time to push her away just because you're scare of being hurt again, she's sincere," he told Angel. "As to what now… Now you talk, about everything. Not just the things that went wrong but all the things you've missed because of them too. Get to know each other again. You'll thank yourselves, and me, for it later." As he departed Lorne said to himself, "Sometimes it's good to be prescient."